Fontainebleau Hotel - Interior/Bar

Although the scenes of James Bond's Goldfinger are hardly noticeable to have taken place here now, the glitz and glamour of the Fontainebleau Hotel still creates a buzz. Morris Lapidus drew some inspiration for the hotel's lobby from set designs of old Hollywood films, like the Busby Berkeley musicals. When completed in 1954, it had more than 500 rooms arranged in a quarter-circle curve, the signature design element of the famous hotel. The original Fontainebleau Hotel is a visual dictionary of the International Style : ribbon windows, floating stairs, parabolic pavilions and undulating parapets. Lapidus was all about reinterpreting Italian Baroque in a modernist style, in a big extravagant modernist way.